Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken
Now it was her turn to do the same.
She forced herself to relax the muscles bunching up her shoulders, to breathe the way Alice had taught her to when her stage fright was at its most crippling. The anxiety, the terror, they were useless to her; she breathed in, out, in, out, until they were chased out of her mind, replaced by a floating, graceful measure of notes. The music was soft, serene, filling the shadows in her thoughts with light. Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending. Of course. Alice’s favorite, the one Etta had played at her instructor’s birthday, a few months before…before the Met concert. Before she’d been shot just outside the mouth of the passage.
Stop thinking. Just go.
Her guard shifted in his chair as she slowly rose, and adjusted his own position with a soft sigh. The book was on the verge of slipping out of his hands, onto his feet. She didn’t let herself wonder at how strange that was, that the guard had felt comfortable enough to take off his shoes and curl up with a book.
It doesn’t matter. There was a literal window of opportunity, and she needed to take it now.
Its frame creaked in quiet protest as Etta pushed it open further. She leaned out to assess her options, quickly recoiling back into the room.
The moon was high overhead, illuminating the bruised remains of a city. There were no streetlights, save for a few distant lanterns, but Etta had a clear view of the hills that rolled down beneath her window, of slanted, winding streets that disappeared beneath heaping mounds of brick and wood, only to reappear again, scorched.
The air held a hint of smoke and salt. An insistent wind carried thick fog up from a distant body of water, as if the city was breathing in the clean, cool mist. Skyscrapers had whole sections of themselves scooped out, their windows knocked loose like teeth. But here and there, Etta saw buildings and structures that looked freshly built—all framework and unfinished brick faces. While many streets and patches of ground had been cleared, the sheer scale of the destruction reminded her of what she had seen in wartime London with Nicholas.
She had the ghost of an idea where she was, but it fled before she could grab onto it. The when seemed more obvious. The furniture, the expensive draperies and bedding, the hideous Victorian-doll-like nightgown someone had stuffed her into, the destruction…late nineteenth century? Early twentieth?
Well, she thought, hoping to prop up her spirits a bit, the only way out is through.
She was on the second or third story of a house, though it was difficult to tell by the steep angle of the road below. This side of the house was covered in an intricate puzzle of wood scaffolding that extended from the roof above her to where the long beams were anchored on the ground.
She stuck an arm out, testing the distance between her and the nearest support. Her fingers easily folded around the rough wood, and before she could question the decision, before she could consider all the reasons it was a very, very terrible idea, Etta climbed up onto the window frame and swung her legs around first to its ledge, then toward the nearest horizontal plank of scaffolding.
“This is insane,” she muttered, waiting to make sure the wood could at least hold some of her weight. How many times growing up had she seen news reports of scaffolding collapsing in New York City?
Eight. Exactly eight.
The blood drained from her head all at once, and she was forced to wait, heart beating an impatient rhythm, until her balance steadied again. Etta held her breath, arms trembling from the strain, as she scooted off the window ledge and onto the wood plank in front of her.
It didn’t so much as groan.
There, she thought, good job. Keep going.
In some ways it was like heading down a strangely constructed ladder. Every now and then, Etta felt the structure tremble with her added weight, and some gaps between the planks and beams were almost too wide to reach across. But she gained confidence with each step, even as the wind plucked at her back, even as she realized she had no idea where to go once she reached the ground.
The bay windows on the floor below were longer and jutted out from the house. More dangerous yet, the glass was glowing, light spilling out onto the scaffolding. Etta crawled forward to peer through her cover of darkness; if the room was occupied, she’d have to move closer to the edge of the scaffolding to avoid being seen by its occupants. But first she wanted to know who, exactly, was in the building—the enormous house—and why they’d taken her in.
The room was larger than the one she’d just climbed out of, and lined with stately, dark wood shelves that contained row upon row of books. There was a desk stationed in front of the window and a large broad-backed chair turned away from her, but the room was otherwise empty.
“Come on,” she whispered. “Move it, Spencer.”
Her lip began to bleed as she dug her teeth into it, trying to keep from crying out in pain each time she dropped down and overextended her hurt shoulder. Gripping the beam she’d been sitting on, as if she were on the monkey bars, she stretched her toes out and felt a tremor of panic deep in her gut as they barely scraped the beam below.
Too far. Her arms strained under her weight as she looked to her right, her left, trying to judge how far she’d have to shift and scoot over to reach the nearest vertical support and slide down it. No—she wasn’t going to make it, not with her shoulder on fire and her entire body shaking.
Not going to make it. She looked down again, this time to the ground below, the slant of the street, and tried not to picture what she’d look like lying there in a broken heap of gauzy white fabric and blood. If she could drop softly enough, she might be able to balance, catch herself—
A sudden movement at the window in front of her snapped her attention forward again. A bemused face stared at her through the glass. She blinked rapidly, her breath locked inside of her throat. The window creaked open, out toward her.
“Well, that’s a bit of trouble you’ve gotten yourself into, old girl—”
Arms reached for her, and Etta didn’t think, didn’t speak, just kicked. Her heel connected with something hard, and she took some satisfaction in the surprised “Cripes!” laced with pain in response.
“That was uncalled for!” came the same voice, now muffled as he clutched his nose.
The pain in her shoulder and left arm stabbed straight through her fear, and her fingers spasmed and relaxed their grip on the beam. A gasp tore out of her as she dangled there by one arm. Her jagged fingernails dug into the wood as she frantically tried to line up her footing below before she lost what grip she had.
“Take my hands—come on, don’t be a fool about this,” the young man was saying. Etta leaned back out of his reach, struggling to pull far enough away, as he climbed onto the frame. “Really? You think the better option is breaking your neck? I’m hurt.”
The wind picked up, tossing her loose hair into her eyes, lifting the hem of her nightgown.
“I can admire the intent here, but you should know that all it would take is one shout from me and you’ll be swarmed by unhappy Thorns having to climb down to fetch you. I doubt you want to die, either, so let’s have it, then—I’ll help you back inside, as easy as pie.”
“Thorns?” Etta’s brows knitted together. Not Ironwoods?
She didn’t recognize the sounds at first, the odd rumbles and creaks, but the vibrations under her hand—those, she understood. The whole structure of scaffolding was being shoved to the left by the wind, leaning, until she heard a snap and felt something clip her bad shoulder as it fell behind her.
Then she was falling, too.
IT HAPPENED TOO FAST FOR ETTA TO EVEN SCREAM. One moment she was falling; the next, her arm was caught and yanked in its socket as two hands closed around her wrist and dragged her toward the pale exterior of the house. Her cheek slammed against the rough stone, and she squeezed her eyes shut as the scaffolding began to shudder, folding in on itself and collapsing down onto the old-fashioned cars parked on the street below.
“Reach up, will you?” the
Instead, he released her wrist with one hand and reached down to grab her nightgown. There was a loud grunt overhead as he heaved her up. Etta’s feet scrabbled against the wall. She didn’t breathe again until her elbows were braced on the windowsill. Then she was spilling through it, onto the young man and the carpet below.
She rolled off him and onto her back as soon as she landed. Her whole body sang with pain and adrenaline, and it was several long moments before her heart steadied enough for Etta to hear anything over its frantic rhythm.
“Well, that was exciting. I’ve always wanted to rescue a damsel in distress, and you’ve given me twice the fun on that front.”
Etta cracked open an eye, turning her head toward the voice. Next to her, propped up on his elbow, the young man was making an appraising, appreciative study of her. She pushed herself upright and scooted back against the desk to put some much-needed distance between them.
He was young—her age, or a few years older, with short, chestnut-colored dark hair brightened by streaks of red. It was mussed to the point of standing on end, and Etta had the horrifying realization that she really had gripped it for leverage when she’d tumbled back into the house. His shirt was open at the collar and inside out, as if he’d picked it up and thrown it on without a second look. He scratched at the shadow of scruff along his jaw, studying her with piercing light blue eyes that warmed with some unspoken joke.
His voice…those eyes.
Ironwood.
Etta pulled herself to her feet, but her path was blocked by the desk. He’d claimed they were with the Thorns, which could only be true if he’d defected from Cyrus Ironwood’s ranks and joined theirs. Or if he was a prisoner, same as her.
Or it would make him a liar. But if this was the truth, then…Etta was exactly where she needed to be.
With the people who had stolen the astrolabe from her.
“I suppose you gave me a bit of a fright, I can be man enough to admit that—”
“Where am I?” she asked, interrupting him.
He seemed startled by her ability to speak, but he stood and retrieved a glass of some amber liquid from a corner table for her. “You sound as terrible as you look, kiddo. Have a sip.”
She stared at it.
“Oh, you’re no fun,” he said with a little pout. “I suppose you’ll want water instead. Wait here and be quiet—can’t raise the alarm just yet, can we?”
Etta wasn’t sure what that meant, but she complied all the same, watching as the young man walked to the door and stuck his head out into the hall.
“You, there—yes, you—bring me a glass of water. And don’t bloody well spit in it this time—you honestly think I’m not well versed enough in that fine art to notice?”
The response was immediate and irritated. “I’m not your damned servant.”
So there are guards after all. The only question was whether they were protecting him, or protecting themselves from him.
“I do believe the official decree from your master and commander was, ‘Give the dear boy what he wants.’ This dear boy wants water. And make it snappy. Pep in your step and all that. Thanks, old chum.”
Etta’s lip curled back. Definitely an Ironwood. And, by the sound of it, definitely working with the Thorns.
“I’m not your—” The young man shut the door on the response and leaned back against it with a pleased little smirk.
“They’re such a serious bunch that it’s all too easy to rile them up,” he whispered to her with a wink. “You and I will have the best fun together now that you’re here.”
She glared back. Unlikely.
After a moment the door popped open and a hand thrust itself in with a glass of cloudy-looking water. The instant the young man took it, the door slammed shut. This time, Etta heard the lock click from the outside.
“You use your old bathwater?” the young man shouted through the wood.
“You’d be so lucky!” came the reply.
He was still muttering as he crossed the room again and handed it to her. It was tinged a putrid brown, with a few suspicious particles floating in it.
Seeing her face, he said, “Sorry, the water situation is none too good after the earthquake, as you can imagine. No one’s gotten sick from it.” And then, after she’d already taken a sip, he added, “Yet.”
The water did have an odd taste—a little metallic, maybe, a little dirty too—but she downed it in two quick gulps. Her hands and arms were still trembling as they tried to recover from the strain.
“Where am I?” she demanded. “When?”
“San Francisco,” he said. “October 12, 1906. You’ve been out a number of days….”
Etta’s heels seemed to sink further into the rug as the weight of his words slammed into her. Thirteen days. She’d lost thirteen days. Nicholas could be anywhere. Sophia could be anywhere. And the astrolabe…
“We were briefly acquainted in the middle of the Texas desert, just after you were spat out by a passage. You might remember?”
“Are you looking for a thank-you?” Etta asked.
“Don’t I deserve one? You are damn lucky we were orphaned through the same passage. I saved you from both the nearby guardian and the coyotes circling nearby, waiting for you to croak. In fact, I’d like to think that if it weren’t for me, the boss man would be lowering your tattered remains into the ground.”
That confirmed her suspicion, at least. Some change must have been made to the timeline that orphaned all the travelers born after that time. Etta closed her eyes. Took a steadying breath through her nose.
“What changed?”
“What changed—oh, you mean the timeline? Judging by the party they neglected to invite me to, the timeline’s shifted the way they were hoping it would. The dimwits running this joint said something about Russia losing but winning. Drunken nonsense. Why we’re still in scenic post-earthquake San Francisco is anyone’s guess, though. Stay with these people long enough and, believe me, they’ll show you the armpit of every century.”
“You haven’t even tried asking them, have you?” Etta asked, unimpressed. “What year?”
His look was lightly scolding. “I told you. 1906.”
She swallowed her noise of irritation. “No, I mean, what year was it in Texas?”
“I’m not entirely sure I should say—”
Etta lunged forward, barely catching the words burning the tip of her tongue before they had the chance to singe him. He wasn’t going to keep the last common year from her—that was the only way she could figure out how to retrace her steps to Damascus, and to Palmyra.
“Oh ho—!” He stood and backed away from her. “You’ve got that wild look in your eyes like you did just before you bopped me on the nose. Believe me, they’ve removed everything that can be used as a weapon.”
Etta looked down at the glass in her hand, then back at him, one brow arching. “I’ve gotten pretty creative over the past few weeks. I think I can handle one minor Ironwood.”
“Minor?” he shot back, his voice wavering between incredulity and outrage. “Don’t you know who I am?”
“No. You were so busy congratulating yourself, you never got around to making introductions,” Etta said. “Though I take it you know who I am?”
“Everyone knows who you are,” he muttered, sounding annoyed. “How far I’ve fallen that I actually have to introduce myself.”
He placed one arm behind his back and the other across his waist, giving her a mocking little bow. “Julian Ironwood, at your service.”
HER DISBELIEF MUST HAVE BEEN SPLASHED ACROSS HER FACE, because his smile shifted, becoming sardonic. Clearly not the reaction he had been expecting.
Julian Ironwood? Etta let out a small, lifeless laugh. Time travel had already presented a number of brain-bending possi
Nicholas had warned her repeatedly about the dangers of telling anyone their fate, that knowing how and when they would die could affect the choices a person made, and potentially, the timeline. Alice had given her an out, had specifically asked her not to say, but now…
The guilt felt familiar as it pooled in her heart. Etta bit her lip. It was just…what were the chances of meeting Nicholas’s brother, and here, of all places? And why hadn’t Nicholas mentioned that Julian had been held at some point by the Thorns?
“Either my adorably sadistic grandfather has done something terrible to you, or you’re about to inform me that I’ve died by—rather stupidly, if I say so myself—falling off a mountain,” he said. “Those seem to be the only two reactions I get these days.”
“You—” Etta sputtered, whirling back around. “I didn’t mean to—it’s just—”
“Calm down, will you? You’re going to give yourself the vapors for no good reason,” he said. “As you can see, I am not dead.”
“Wait…” she began, coming closer to better study his face. His eyes were the same icy shade of blue as Cyrus’s, and she could detect, under the scruff and grin, the same high cheekbones and long, straight nose that age had tempered on the old man’s face. Julian also seemed to have the Ironwood affinity for grappling for control of every conversation, no matter how short.
“You’re alive,” Etta finally managed to get out. “You…you didn’t die after all?”
He grinned, enjoying the conversation, and motioned down to his body. “Still in one piece. The luck of the devil, as old Grandpops used to say. Rather odd, that, considering he is the devil—”
“What happened?” she interrupted.
He gave her an infuriating grin. “Tell me what you think happened.”